


The pretender

by BlossomsintheMist



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Anxiety, Character Study, Gen, Self-Doubt, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-12
Updated: 2015-01-12
Packaged: 2018-03-07 05:45:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3163448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlossomsintheMist/pseuds/BlossomsintheMist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alistair doesn't know what he's doing.  He keeps pretending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The pretender

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt meme on tumblr.

He’s not, you know.

The voice in his head, in the very back of his mind, tells him that, all the time.  It doesn’t need a reason to start talking to him, it can start up at the most random times.  Sharpening his sword, and all he can hear, suddenly, is his own voice, reminding him of how he’s no one’s son.  Not really.  Cailan was the king’s son, Cailan, who grew up with a father, blond, who looked like him, not wishing desperately that it were true, that the man whose castle he lived in was his father instead.  He’s not that man.  He’s not, you know.  Not like him.  Not like that.  Not Maric’s son, not Eamon’s, not anyone’s.

He’s not the last Grey Warden in Ferelden.  Someone far better at the job than he could ever be deserves that name.  Alistair’s just some nobody lucky enough to tag along to help.  He’s not the Hero of Ferelden, no, Maker, no.  Just … no.  He’s not a leader.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing, he thinks as he stands in front of the men, makes his voice ring out loud and commanding.  This isn’t him.  This isn’t real.  It’s all fake.  Faking it.  Faker.  It’s all pretend.  His hands feel sweaty and hot in his armor as he reaches for the Urn.  He doesn’t deserve this.  His hand closes around the Chantry amulet around his neck and he doesn’t even have the faith to pray.   _Maker_ , he thinks,  _Maker’s breath, Maker preserve us_ , but he doesn’t believe the Maker will ever return, and the bitterness in him is long and deep when he sees the eternal flame, and the Maker’s sunburst.  And yet he still wears the amulet around his neck, and when he touches it, he thinks  _Mother_ , not  _Andraste_.

There is so much anger in him.  He pretends.  Pretends that the solid, hot lump of rage beneath his sternum, in his gut, isn’t there, grief twisted up with anger.  Pretends that he can let it go, can breathe through it when it feels as if it’s choking him.  The anger boils up under the hot, wet grief in his eyes and throat, and he can’t stop it.  It’s not right, he thinks.  It’s not right.  He thinks that, and pretends he doesn’t feel it.

But he does, and it aches in his gut, a solid weight, knotted and leaden, and he can’t make it go away.

Why did Duncan recruit him?  What did he even see?  Alistair falls over his own feet.  He has two left hands.  He thinks these things, in dark moments that come from nowhere, when the sun is shining brightly in the sky and the birds are singing, when people are laughing and smiling around him, and suddenly, for no reason, when he should be laughing, should be joining in, suddenly he feels he is the butt of the joke.  He doesn’t belong here.  He’s not one of them.  They don’t like him.  If not for their mission, for his friend, they wouldn’t stay.  He couldn’t pull these people together.  They think he’s a fool.  He is a fool.  Of course he’s the butt of their jokes.

He knows it’s not true.  He does.  Mostly.  Probably.  But he can’t get rid of the way he thinks about it.  The way he feels.  He feels it on rainy days, too, out of nowhere, putting up a tent, and it hits him.  He doesn’t belong here.  He doesn’t know what he’s doing.

He should be dead.  That would be better.  Someone who knows what they’re doing would be here, instead of him.

He hates it, feeling sorry for himself.  It’s pathetic, and what’s more, he is here, he is here, and he has to do whatever he can.  Or else … they fail.  Or else it’s all for nothing.  He tries not to think about it, but the voice in the back of his head won’t be quiet.  He buries it.  Pretends like it’s all right.  Like he knows what he’s doing.  Pretends.

He’s not, you know.  Someday they might set a crown on his head and call him a king.  It makes him feel cold, and sick, makes him feel like he’s going to vomit a little.  It’s so wrong.  He’s not … he’s not the king.

He’s not Maric’s son.  He’s a bastard.  He has no father.  He’s old enough to know that, now.

He tells himself not to think about it.  That it doesn’t matter.

It’s not true, you know.

He keeps pretending.


End file.
